June 2020 Newsletter

Learning to Listen For Lent one year, I thought hard about what would be a true sacrifice I could make during the season between Ash Wednesday and Easter. I was a young mother at the time, staying home with my children. There were so few things that were even mine to give up. I was not eating inContinue reading “June 2020 Newsletter”

May 2020 Newsletter

Behind Every Purchase Is a Person I was that early ’90s college kid who had the Think Global, Act Local bumper sticker haphazardly stuck to my dorm room door.Back then, it was a vague concept I was only beginning to grasp. Globalism itself was still early in its wide-reaching transformation of how we eat and shopContinue reading “May 2020 Newsletter”

April 2020 Newsletter

Losing the Need to Win I can easily recall the disappointment on my sweet son’s face. We were perched, him and me, at a game table by the window at a state park in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a rainy day and our plans of wandering and fishing had been shifted to play andContinue reading “April 2020 Newsletter”

March 2020 Newsletter

To Connect Is Human Two weeks ago, I was in a retirement community in Eastern North Carolina, celebrating the long life of my mother-in-law. After a lovely funeral Mass, the family lined up to hear the kind words of those who knew her. We were instructed not to shake hands or hug. We could lean in,Continue reading “March 2020 Newsletter”

February 2020 Newsletter

Finding My Path Six years ago next month, my first newspaper feature in more than a decade was printed in The Roanoke Times. That story marked the beginning of a new chapter in my life, one where I would attempt to add a career in writing to the swirl of raising three kids and eating local food and volunteeringContinue reading “February 2020 Newsletter”